Category: It’s Monday!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

So, I did it to myself again. I have too many books going so I did not finish a single one of them this week. Also, I was back at work after missing a week because I was sick. Suffice it to say, there were a lot of things to catch up on. Plus, I was still not feeling better so I was exhausted every night. I came home and fell asleep on the couch and took a nap every day last week.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am more than halfway through All the Light We Cannot See, which I am loving so far.  I also am reading La mirada de los angeles, which is another mystery thriller from Camilla Lackberg. I love this series. I am still also reading a nonfiction book about the history of chocolate.

What’s Next?
I honestly have no idea what I will read next. I think I will probably pick up a number of middle grade titles so that I can get quickly through some of my pile. It will depend on my work load this week and how I am feeling.

What are you reading? Have any recommendations for me? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Books I Finished This Week:

Patient Zero: Solving the Mysteries of Deadly Epidemics by Marilee Peters was a fascinating read about how epidemiologists solve the mysteries behind how epidemics started. I highly recommend this very intriguing nonfiction title.

The Forgotten Sisters (Princess Academy, #3) by Shannon Hale is another great read. I really enjoyed going back to Miri’s world for another adventure. I recommend this one for fans of the other Princess Academy books. And if you haven’t read this series, you should!

Duke by Kirby Larson is a good historical fiction novel. I did not know anything about the movement during World War II of donating family pets for service with the military. I enjoyed the story and was able to identify with the protagonist, as I think all kids who own dogs would. I can’t wait to share this title with my fourth graders.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge was an interesting book. It is a fractured retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I thought it was an interesting premise, but not really my cup of tea. If you like science fiction, you will probably like this book. I might have enjoyed the book more in print. I may have lost some of the details while listening to the audio.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I started All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and La mirada de los angeles by Camilla Lackberg. I also am reading a Netgalley of Chocolate: Sweet Science and Dark Secrets of the World’s Favorite Treat. This will be another good nonfiction book to add to my classroom library. I am learning a lot about history as well as about cacao trees and cocoa. I also picked up The Right to Write last week.

What’s Next?

I probably won’t have much time to read anything besides the books I have already started. If I do get finished or decide to pick up another book, I will be choosing from my TBR pile.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

I have had a few weeks of not finishing many books. I was so busy and I also made the mistake of starting to read a bunch of books at once. This week, I have been sick and unable to get into work. This means, of course, that I have had more reading time. I do not at all relish the fact that I am sick, but I do appreciate the fact that I am not too sick to read and can at least accomplish something while I am home or at the doctor’s office waiting for my appointments.

Books I Finished This Week:

I just have to say that I have been reading some amazing things! I would highly recommend them all.

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor is the conclusion to the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. I cannot say enough about these hauntingly beautiful books. I would highly recommend listening to the audiobooks of this series. I listened to the first two books and really missed the audiobook narrator when reading the third book. Her voices really brought the characters alive for me. This story is so full of interesting characters who break your heart and give you joy. And the language that this author uses. I couldn’t help but grab a couple quotes to demonstrate the beauty of the language in this book. Highly, highly recommended for high school and adult readers.

“He was angles and darkness, her opposite–a moon-creature to her sun, a slicing shadow to her glow. But that was all silhouette. It was in his smile, and in his eyes, and in his waiting–he was still waiting–that she saw him, and knew him. Strength and grace and loneliness and longing.
     And Hope.
     And Hesitation.
    He was standing still to let himself be judged, and it shamed her. She saw it in his stillness. He was afraid that she would think him a beast, and how could she assure him of what she herself, five seconds before, had been uncertain? How could she tell him that he was magnificent, and she was humbled–speechless not with distaste but with awe.”

“The smile that she had never seen yet with these eyes….Warm with wonderment, a smile so beautiful it ached. It crinkled his eyes, and shaped his beauty into another kind of astonishing, a better kind, because it was the astonishment of happiness, and that reshapes everything. It makes hearts whole and lives worth living.”

I got Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman from NetGalley. I was super excited to be able to read this one and get the word out that everyone should order it.  The book release date is March 10th so it is perfect timing to preorder the book and have it waiting on your doorstep next Tuesday. I loved this story every bit as much as I loved Seraphina. It is such an interesting story world and I really loved the adventures in this book. Highly recommended for teens and adults.

 When I picked up The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, I knew I would have a quick read and I knew it would be one that I liked. I loved how the rhythms of the poems sang to me and I could imagine how reading this one aloud could be so much fun! What I didn’t know is that there would be a very raw personal connection that I would make to the main character. My father had heart issues when I was younger and I found that I could relate to some of the more worried tones in some of the poems.

I loved Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers, just as I loved Grave Mercy and Dark Triumph. Fantasy, romance, political intrigue, and assassins fill the pages of this book and the others in the series. What more could you ask for? I liked the way this book wrapped up the story from the trilogy and brought the stories of all three assassins to satisfying conclusions.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I started reading another book from NetGalley entitled Patient Zero: Solving the Mysteries of Deadly Epidemics. I am really learning a lot from this nonfiction book. It would be a great mentor text for middle school. I also started reading the most recent Camilla Lackberg mystery. I really enjoy her mysteries and I always read the Spanish versions because they are released first in Spain.

What’s Next?

I will be starting All the Light You Cannot See for my staff book club. I also have The Marshmallow Test on my shelf and would like to get to the most recent Princess Academy book as well. The formatting was off in my NetGalley copy of Read Between the Lines but if I can figure that out, I would love to be able to read that one too. Jo Knowles rocks!

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Books I Finished This Week:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is a really engaging book. I read it almost in one sitting and had a hard time putting it down. A post-apocalyptic world that sounded scary realistic to me. What would happen if there were a deadly flu that acted so quickly? What I loved about this book was an inherent message that performance and music and art matter and can be very important for people. I love that the author shows us a bleak world but gives us hope at the same time. I highly recommend this book.

Nnewts is the first book in a new middle grade graphic novel series by Doug TenNapel. I thought the story was intriguing (and somewhat weird) and I am sure my students will like it. The use of color in this graphic novel is especially striking.  I would recommend this one for grades 4 and up.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a very interesting book. I found it to be sort of a mix between Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, but definitely for adults with the situations and language for mature audiences. I found myself really disliking the main character by the end of this book.  I was a little surprised at how dark everything got toward the end as well. I know that this is the first in a trilogy and I am interested in reading the rest of the series. I only hope I will be able to start liking this character again.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am still reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters and Shadow Scale. I started listening to Cruel Beauty and so far it is intriguing. I also dipped into Mortal Heart.

What’s Next?

I have some professional reading to do this week so I am not sure I will get to much more than what I already started. We shall see what the week holds.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Once again, I have gone too long in between blog posts. I swear I will get back into the swing of things soon.

Since the last time we saw each other, I have read some great books. I will include all of my books from the last few weeks since some were quite long so there are not too many.

Books I Finished:

 

I am not really sure what to say about this one. It really caught my attention and I was intrigued by most of the book. However, I think there are some parts in the last half of the book that were not necessary and sort of made the story drag. A book this long inevitably will have some extra content and a few slow spots. Overall, this was a good read and the story really made me think about right and wrong. There are a lot of people in this book making bad decisions, but are those people bad people? It is interesting to contemplate the answers to this.

I got Queen Sugar on NetGalley because I was intrigued by the book description. This is another book for adults. I really enjoyed the story of this woman who moves to the South because her father leaves her a sugar cane farm. She grew up in California and does not know the first thing about running a farm, much less the way things work for African Americans in the deep south. She is living with her grandmother and struggling to learn what she needs to learn in order to save her inheritance from her daddy. The story really captured my imagination and I enjoyed learning more than I knew I wanted to know about sugar cane production. I was impressed by the way the racial tensions were woven into the story and present without being something that hit me over the head–very thought-provoking! I highly recommend this one.

This is a fun and quick read for middle grade students who are interested in science. I thought the whole time I was reading it about one of my students and I can’t wait to get this book into his hands. Jon Scieszka is hilarious and this book does not disappoint!

LOVED this one! Maggie Stiefvater is a genius. I can’t wait to find out what happens next in this series.

I got this one from Netgalley as well. It is coming out later this month. I really enjoyed this fantasy. I will be very interested to see where the next book goes with the story. I would recommend this one for teens who enjoy fantasy series. I like how there is a little bit of a love plot without it really being a main storyline. The world in this book is really interesting and I love the premise.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I started The Magicians by Lev Grossman and am loving it so far. I also am reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters. I listened to the first two books so reading this one is a different experience. I am glad I listened to the audiobooks for the first ones, because the narrator is amazing and I also know how to pronounce the weird names in the book.

What’s Next?

I still have my ridiculous pile of books from the library plus a bunch of galleys to read. I will be choosing mostly by due dates.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

The Pale Assassin by Patricia Elliott really took me by surprise. I enjoyed reading this book and learning more about the French revolution from the point of view of an aristocrat. I flew through the book because I was so curious about what was going to happen. I have the second book on my TBR shelf and I am sure I will be picking it up to read soon.

I love Kate Messner’s books! I have absolutely adored every one of them. All the Answers was no exception.  Imagine that you have a pencil that will answer all your questions for you, provided they are questions that have factual answers. Would you want to know? Ava thinks she wants to know and that she has an amazing find in the pencil that will give her the answers. She soon finds out that maybe learning all the answers is not exactly what she thought it would be. This book is heartwarming and I cannot wait to buy a copy for my class library.

In Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne, disaster is striking all around. There is ridiculously big hail that causes car crashes, there are earthquakes and tsunamis happening around the world. And then the defense company nearby leaks gas into the air. Now, it is dangerous to go outside. In the book, a group of kids are abandoned in a superstore while their bus driver goes to seek help. They are left to fend for themselves and to fight for their survival. This book was fascinating and I had a hard time putting it down. Good thing I was on vacation and could stay up to all hours of the morning to read.

I listened to Confessions of a Murder Suspect on audiobook. I loved this book, but I am not sure I would have loved it as much without the audio narrator. I think she nailed the tone of the book. I will be interested to read more of this series to see if they hold up. I would highly recommend this entertaining read to high school students and adults.

Into the Still Blue is the third book in the Under the Never Sky trilogy. I listened to the first two books and loved them both as audiobooks. This one was a really well written and believable third book. I love when authors really nail the ending of a series. If you are a fan of dystopian/post-apocalyptic books, then you need to read this series right now. Oh, and Perry and Roar are swoon-worthy characters if you like that sort of thing 😉

A Crooked Kind of Perfect was a perfect light and quick read. This is a heartwarming story about a girl who works to make lemonade out of lemons. She is the kind of character that you just love to love. Her father loves her and has good intentions, but never quite comes through for her in the right way. Take for instance the dreams she has of becoming a concert pianist. Her father gets her an organ. Yes, it is an instrument, but it is not the elegant one that she had envisioned for herself. I highly recommend this middle grade read to everyone.

I just finished listening to Of Poseidon by Anna Banks. I loved this book. I must find the next one! It is the perfect mix of supernatural mystery, mythology, and teen romance. The audiobook narrator did an excellent job with this one also. I once again found myself looking for tasks I could do in order to continue listening to my book when I finished my workouts. My kitchen is mighty clean lately.  I highly recommend this one as well.

Books I Am Currently Reading:

I am still plugging away at El tiempo entre costuras and am also reading The Blood of Olympus.

What’s Next?

I may have gone a little overboard in requesting books at my local library. I have quite the pile of books to read and some are super lengthy. I will have to see what happens this week and realistically how much time I have for reading. I would like to read Dreams of Gods and Monsters if I have time, but man that book is thick. We shall see what happens.

What are you reading? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.